Just Like That
by Tabitha Dornoc
Summary: [oneshot SoraKairi] “She’s always singing,” Sora says, partly to himself, partly to Riku. “It’s not... anything. It doesn’t matter. She just... you know... She’s always singing.”


**Disclaimer:** Nay. Nay to Kingdom Hearts characters, and nay to the Disney songs alluded throughout.

**Just Like That**

"If music be the food of love, play on." - Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night

000

The hollow sound of water hitting tile is what wakes him almost every morning. Kairi likes to sleep in. She likes to be in bed until the sun rises high enough in the sky to warm her through the windows. Then she wraps herself in covers and sleeps longer. She stays up late into the night and sleeps through the morning. Except here.

Here in the Gardens she is up _with_ the sun instead of fighting against it in vain. She somehow catches Sora unaware, unaware enough to slip from bed and into the shower without waking him. And Sora is a light sleeper; years of world hopping having forced the habit. But in this time and place, Kairi is... _home_, and the world must bend to her will. It recognizes its princess.

Sora lays in bed for a moment, lazily shuffling across the mattress to the place Kairi had slept. Warm and pleasant with the magic aftertaste of her, he curls there and smiles. Waits for it.

Over the hum of water pipes and wet ceramic, if he keeps his breathing shallow, he can hear Kairi. She sings the same song every day in the shower. One he doesn't know outside of her morning ritual. It's her morning song. It's about Dreams and Wishes and how they come from the heart.

"Where did you learn that song?" he once asked her. And she blushed terrifically at having an audience.

"Hm. One of the girls," she had replied. One of the princesses.

Kairi can sing the song thrice through before the creak of faucets being turned interrupts

her. The water stops as does her singing. Sora waits, not quite feigning sleep yet making no move to prove himself otherwise. Kairi will know anyway. But he likes the way she dashes to the bed afterwards, leaning over him. Her wet hair tickling the back of his neck as she whispers 'good morning'. And her kisses almost taste like strawberries because it's all he can smell from her shampoo.

So Sora waits. Three, two, one. Strawberry kisses in the morning.

000

Riku is there this morning, which is a pleasant surprise. He usually takes his rest where the king takes his - usually at his own home. But Riku is here today, and he's quickly stealing more than his share of pancakes.

"Oi. Save some for us," Sora greets him, darting his fingers out to grab the top most layer of pancakes in Riku's stack. It flops between his thumb and fore finger for a moment before he rolls it up and shoves it in his mouth whole. "Fank yoo," he says with a filled grin.

Riku pushes his plate away with mock disgust, turning to say hello to Kairi.

"There's plenty to go around, Sora," Kairi tells him, leaning around Riku. She rolls his eyes as some full-mouthed chewing is her only response. But there really is plenty to go around. Radiant Garden is full of people again, many of whom work in the main house.

When the king had asked them to help with the 'clean up' process, Kairi had worked here. Sora and Riku went about hunting stray dark creatures, and Kairi got to tackle the ones they knew about: the thick, oozing world of kingdom hearts. She, the princesses, and anyone else with some magic aptitude worked with hearts day after day after day, sorting and pushing them back into the worlds they came from.

Residents from Radiant Garden were the easiest and first to be found and organized. They

pulsed to her rhythm and migrated to her without call. And through some sort of backwards magic equation, one that Sora couldn't quite figure out, they gained their bodies back. A few weeks after she had started, Kairi had her people again. And they liked to serve her. Liked to serve her lots of pancakes in the morning.

"Are you staying long?" she asks Riku, and Sora glances over at the Hope that is laced into her question. Taking a swig of juice to wash down his stolen mouthful, Sora waits for Riku to answer.

"Not long," he says, and looks sad for it. "I wanted to ask Sora something." Kairi nods slowly, covering his hand with hers for a moment.

"I hate when you play Stranger," she squints at him, and since Riku is a smart young man, he quickly nods. It appeases her, for now. Appeases her enough that she slips away, sauntering around the big table, calling back that they really _don't_ need such a big room, and couldn't she have a dodgy apartment somewhere else instead. Her voice trails to the thinnest of echoes in the morning air before Riku turns to him.

"She's going to talk to the kitchens. She likes to thank them for cooking before she eats anything," Sora says, pulling Riku's discarded plate towards himself and beginning to stab at the rejected breakfast.

"How are you?" Riku asks, and he's not playing along. He's supposed to make some comment about Kairi never being a proper princess anyway, or maybe how Kairi has more manners than Sora ever will, or... something. But he's not playing along. Sora swallows his (much smaller) bite even though it now tastes like sand.

"I'm fine here. I'm with Kairi."

"Sora. Don't tell me you're 'fine'. Your keyblade is going rusty and I know you'd rather-"

"I'm with Kairi," Sora repeats, and that's that. Riku's short nod and frown show his understanding. They sit in a silence that is wide and deep and it's strange because Sora had almost forgotten what Quiet felt like.

"She's always singing," Sora says, partly to himself, partly to Riku. "It's not... anything. It doesn't matter. She just... you know... She's always singing."

"Hm. Does it worry you?" Riku asks, seriously. And again: not playing along. There's supposed to be something about _better her than you_ and yet-

"No," Sora says, and he's never been more grateful to not be telling a lie. "It doesn't worry me." Riku smiles briefly.

"It might not even be her, you know. Naminé used to tap things. Like, incessantly. Feet on tiles, pen on the table, fingers against her thighs... just tapping things. And when I asked her Why she got all surprised. Said it was for me... to let me know she was there when I couldn't see."

"I'm not blindfolded, Riku."

"Doesn't mean it's not for you."

Sora's objection is caught on his tongue by the sound of Kairi's returning footsteps and her low humming, approaching nearer and nearer.

"That's your song. She only sings it around you," Sora whispers out of the corner of his mouth, though Kairi isn't even in the room yet. Riku shakes his head in disagreement.

"It's Aurora's song. And I like it," Riku says, head tilted and smile wistful. "Maleficent _hated_ that tune," he says louder, to Kairi when she passes through the door. Kairi stops her humming and her walking for a quick moment before beaming.

"That's why I sing it," she says, and frowns at the strange 'I told you so' look Riku passes to Sora before he stands to pull out her chair.

000

Kairi can't whistle.

It's nearing noon, and neither of them are going anywhere yet, so there's no escape route open to him. All he can really do is watch Kairi while she's writing in her notebook and listen to her blow air through her lips with no sound.

"You can't whistle," he finally says, aggravated. And can you teach someone to whistle? Riku had taught him, hadn't he? All those years ago? He'd have to call Riku in again.

Urgent important business, this.

"Doesn't matter," she flippantly replies.

"It totally does. If I have to listen to you sing about 'whistling while you work' (when you clearly can't) one more time, I may snap."

"In two?"

"Into a million pieces of non-whistling woe. And then what would you do?"

"I'd sweep you up and keep you in a big glass jar like some old creepy lady. And while I was sweeping?"

"You'd whistle while you worked?"

"I'd whistle while I worked. And there'd be nothing you could do about it."

000

Days when Kairi stops to pick flowers, she's never quite home on time.

Kairi has a song about flowers that she tends to murmur when she comes home in the late afternoon. Her hair is always falling away from the little braids she ties it up in every morning, and no matter how pressed and clean her clothes are when she leaves home, they're never the same when she comes back in.

"Wading knee deep through hearts will do that to you," she says when Sora points out her appearance, laughing. "And you know, there wouldn't _be_ so many hearts to organize and deal with if _someone_ could have kept their keyblade to themselves."

"You don't like when I keep my keyblade to myself." Her laugh carries her over until she's standing in front of him, leaning down so their foreheads brush.

"I like when you try to talk dirty. Always makes you blush." Still grinning, she touches his cheeks which are, shamefully, light red from sexual innuendo.

"Yeah, well let's see you do better." And she's breathing the song again, the one about flowers, and she's weaving the little white lilies she picked on her way home through her messy braids.

"Alice sang this song when a bunch of flowers thought she was a ... flower." She has three clusters of lilies throughout her hair; some by her left ear, some tied at the nape of her neck and some twisted in the bottom tie of the braid that falls against Sora's right cheek.

"I'm a lily," she says, shaking her head madly.

"That's not talking dirty," Sora argues, leaning forward all the same and breathing her in. Kairi grabs his chin and makes his eyes meet hers.

"Deflower me."

"Ah, that's my girl."

000

"Mm. Thanks, Kairi," Sora murmurs, because she's found the book he's only been looking for _forever_. ("Don't be ridiculous, Sora. It's been ten minutes. And it was right under your nose, as usual." Then she flicks his nose with her finger.) He's flipping through the text quickly using the Leon patented 'scan – don't read, and the right words will pop out at you' technique, before Kairi interrupts him.

"I wish you wouldn't say my name," she says, and when he looks up at her over the top of his book, she's staring out the window.

"Pardon?"

"When you thank me." Curled up on the wide window ledge, forehead resting against the glass, she makes eye contact with him through his reflection. "Cause if you don't, you're thanking _her_ too. Makes her smile." Kairi places her spread hand over her heart for a moment, and her face flickers to someone else's.

"Okay," Sora answers, understanding even if he doesn't... understand. "I don't... I don't remember her, you know. As I should."

"I think she made it that way."

"Guess it makes us even. You never met Roxas," he points out, setting aside his book and walking the short distance to the window. Leaning against the wall he grins down at her.

"I dunno," Kairi begins, head tilted in thought. "I have memories... from her... of seeing him... Before." If Kairi weren't a princess of Radiant Garden she'd be a princess of Verbal

Articulacy. Sora schools away a funny smile.

"I don't even know what that means," he says, shaking his head a little. "But... it doesn't matter about before, right? He's a part of me now. In a way." Kairi's laugh is almost a song in itself; it follows a quick melody and has a certain time to it.

"You really don't have to explain that to me," she says, giving him a Look, and her expression is sweet and quiet for a moment.

"Of course," he agrees, reaching his fingers out to touch her lips. But when he gets there they are already Kairi's again. His hand drops to her shoulder and around for a half embrace.

"I wasn't saying anything, Sora. Just that... he's changed. Since I can recall him."

"Roxas is Roxas."

"Well, yes, but now he's... I dunno. Less... angry, more ... unsure." Kairi laughs again, hiding her face into Sora's shoulder, groaning a little. "I wonder why I didn't see it there before," she hums with another groan, and he can feel her grin against his neck. "Sora... Roxas is a part of You. And if Roxas were here, I'd say 'Sora is a part of You'."

"Well... yeah."

"And... I love 'you'."

"Thank you." And both girls grin.

000

In the evenings they open the windows. By day's end the rooms all seem to be filled with warm, stale air. Kairi opens them wide and looks out over the city which grows a little more every day. Becomes a bit brighter with more candles in windows belonging to more and more people saved.

The wind tickles them in bed, and maybe it's a little too cool, but Kairi likes to burrow in blankets, and Sora likes the way she almost burrows into _him_ as well. Warm under quilts and warm with his body heat, she sighs and slows her breathing. The wind is nice on their faces. But it's dry. There is no salt in its flavour and it makes Sora think of all the ways this room and this world are so very Not-Home.

But Kairi turns her head on his shoulder, and her hair smells a little like strawberries still, so maybe it's enough. No, he's quite sure: it's enough. She's humming again as she begins to drift to sleep. She told him once it was a magic carpet song, but that all it really needed was a boy and a star filled sky to sing to.

"Hey," he says, low. "Your songs. You learned them from the princesses, right?"

"Hmm," she agrees.

"Well... how come you don't have your own song?"

"I do have a song," she says, sleepily; drowsing already in the thick summer air. "You sing it for me." He laughs, jostling her for a moment.

"I do? How does it go?" he asks, perplexed. His fingers rub the edge of her shoulder while he waits for her answer. And waits. And waits. And waits...

Pressed to Sora's side, her head resting against his chest, Kairi pushes her face closer; listens.

The soft inhale of Sora's lungs. The gentle slide of his skin as he fidgets against her arm.

The constant beat of a heart, thumping to steady and unchanging rhythm. His breath exhaling. And still thump thump thump. Kairi smiles.

"Just like that."


End file.
